


Would You Remember If I Whispered Your Name?

by TheSoggySchuyler4



Series: Forget-Me-Not Soldier [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 03:04:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17541464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSoggySchuyler4/pseuds/TheSoggySchuyler4
Summary: Sometimes he forgets. Sometimes she does. Then comes the time when they both forget all at once.





	Would You Remember If I Whispered Your Name?

Bucky stands in a storm, soaked to the bone, frozen in time.

Natasha stands in the shadows, aching with too many of their thoughts and not enough of her own

Bucky is always cold, always empty. They call him the winter soldier yet he longs for the spring. Sometimes he pauses to feel the sun on his face, and instead feels the sting of a lash on his back or a bullet through his skin.

Natasha dances under a flickering yellow light, the only thing holding her together. Pain stabs her feet like a million swords, but this is her only salvation and she will not stop.

This is what they know:

It is mid summer in the full sun. Black Widow says no, but Winter Soldier screams louder and shoots his target through her. Her hair is the colour of blood, he realises, as her stomach colours to match it.

There is a punishment for failure. Natasha will wear the reminder forever.

They are made to forget the rest.

They forget stolen kisses in the shadows of low hanging grape vines, and hands that give a comforting touch without words. They forget their silent language of their eyes, and the immovable bond between their souls.

Sometimes he forgets, and she pulls him back with a whisper of his full name--the one that belongs to him and can never be tainted or stolen- in the deadest of nights.

It is rare, rarer, that she forgets, and there are no words that can bring her home to him. Instead, he touches her in all the places that crave it most, and she remembers his fingers curled into her skin.

Natasha doesn't remember why she ran. She remembers screaming and pain and a deep undeniable longing for someone who's face she cannot grasp in her mind. She does remember the mantra running through her mind in a voice that is not her own, and so very familiar, but more like a distant memory too far away to catch.

_Run Natalia. Free yourself. Be good._

When Clint finds her and saves her, she doesn't tell him about the voice, or the gutting sense of loss that lingers. She merely accepts his olive branch and moves forward.

Bucky doesn't even remember that he has forgotten.

Steve speaks frequently about his lost friend, to the point that Natasha almost feels as if she too had known the man. She doesn't tell Steve this, because he is hurting so much already.

Natasha does not recognise Steve's friend, even as he shoots at her for what can't have been the first time. She does not know him at all. But he will not leave her thoughts.

Steve leaves and returns with his friend, who is called Bucky and remembers very little.

Natasha is surprised at her desire to comfort this man who she does not know. She stifles the thoughts and avoids Bucky altogether.

It is not until Steve calls Bucky by his full name that Natasha remembers ( _thinks_ she remembers). Steve says it in a teasing, lilting voice, like a playful schoolboy.

Natasha echoes it without thinking, the words tinged instead with pain and anguish.

She does not miss the concern and confusion in their eyes as she slips from the room. She thinks that perhaps she is even more confused.

Bucky's full name means something to her, she knows, but she has not yet grasped what. She only knows that it hurts. It hurts more than any wound she has ever received.

Bucky - _James_ \- finds her, much later. He has cut his hair, Natasha notes, and appears in equal parts more and less put together than before.

"I remember you. When you said my name I remembered you" He tells her, and she knows, instinctively that he is telling the truth.

"I don't remember you." She replies, and she thinks that this is the hardest thing she has ever had to say. But she cannot lie to him. Not to Bucky. Not to James.

Bucky leaves. When he returns, he calls her Natalia and smiles sadly in her direction, but he does not push. Natasha is glad of that.

Despite not remembering, it is easy to fall into comfort with James. They joke and tease each other, and sometimes Natasha catches his eye and knows exactly what he is thinking.

Sometimes, she thinks she might not need to remember. It doesn't stop her from falling all over again.

They are not together in any romantic capacity. Intimate, for them, never meant a bed or romance or skin contact. Bucky lifts her chin and kisses her forehead, and she remembers everything.

Sometimes she gets a little confused. The team know about their relationship, and yet she still gets the compultion to hide their relationship. She panics and makes Bucky hide under their bed whenever she hears footsteps, and she will not touch him when they are not alone, or outside of the tower. Some days, she will not touch him at all- not even in private- because in her mind it is still the Red Room, and the other trainers are too suspicious.

Bucky always brings her back. Always.

Bucky spends his spring mornings with Natasha, wrapped up in their warm bed. They spend their days out of the shadows, thawing from the cold of their pasts. They relish the warmth and thrive in the sun.

Natasha learns the word happy. Bucky relearns it and remembers how to smile.

This is what they know:

Nothing will ever make them forget again.


End file.
